Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

Writing Rules Does Not Right Wrongs, Odeana R. Neal

All Faculty Scholarship

I believe the work that lawyers, legal academics, and judges do is important. Our work allows us to devise legal theories, develop litigation strategies and determine outcomes that can make a tremendous difference in people's lives. As a result, I applaud the insight and creativity of Judge Beck and Professors Glennon and Goldfarb. Their work demonstrates how law can be used to protect gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, their relationships and their families.

Geographically Sexual?: Advancing Lesbian And Gay Interests Through Proportional Representation, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article explores lesbian and gay interests and representational characteristics. Part II highlights the inadequacies of a single-member districting system in representing the interests of lesbian and gay communities. It concludes with an examination of the New York City Council's 1991 redistricting, where the mobilization of strong lesbian and gay communities in a receptive environment nonetheless failed to lead to effective representation of lesbian and gay interests in the City Council. Part III describes proportional representation systems and reveals how such systems would better serve lesbian and gay communities. Part IV acknowledges the political and legal obstacles …

Geographically Sexual?: Advancing Lesbian And Gay Interests Through Proportional Representation, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the 1993 New York City School Board elections, a system of proportional representation allowed lesbians and gay men to elect representatives of their choice. In response to the School Board's plan to introduce the Children of the Rainbow Curriculum, the New York City chapter of the Christian Coalition, an organization of the Christian Right, began an opposition campaign with the slogan "No Sodom on the Hudson" that pitted parents of color against so-called “rich white gays.” Having succeeded in forcing the school chancellor's resignation, the Christian Coalition formulated a plan for the takeover of all New York City …

The Limits Of Legal Discourse: Learning From The Civil Rights Movement In The Quest For Gay And Lesbian Civil Rights, Odeana R. Neal

All Faculty Scholarship

The African-American struggle for civil rights has been a long one, one that began with the importation of the first black person into the country as a slave, and continues today. Through radical political struggle coupled with legal precedent, de jure segregation became a part of the past of the United States. Meticulous legal strategizing by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund culminated with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared unconstitutional the governmental practice of segregating on the basis of race. Careful legislative lobbying—as well as the threats posed by radical black political groups who …

First And Last Chance: Looking For Lesbians In California's Fifties Bar Cases, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Do all of us who choose members of our own sex as objects of desire and as sexual partners share some meaningful common identity, such as “homosexual,” “gay” or perhaps “queer”? The classifications “homosexual” and “gay” claim for themselves just that kind of inclusiveness; that is, that the gay world includes people of all races, all classes and any possible gender identity. You, me, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, J. Edgar Hoover: we are all gay together. In this way “homosexual” or “gay” is a generic term, like, for example, “human being.” But we know that the alleged inclusiveness masks just …

Overcoming "Stigmas": Lesbian And Gay Districts And Black Electoral Empowerment, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the United States, historically, members of racial and sexual minority groups have been prevented from effectively participating in governmental decisionmaking because the political districting system denies them adequate representation in the political process. Following the 1990 census, blacks, in particular, saw significant gains in their political representation as a result of redistricting, only to suffer a sharp reduction of their voting rights with the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in the Shaw and Miller cases. Whereas voting rights litigation once explored ways to prevent minority vote dilution, today's jurisprudence focuses on the ramifications of the "stigma" faced by blacks …

Lesbians, Gays And The Struggle For Equality Rights: Reversing The Progressive Hypothesis, Mary Eaton

Dalhousie Law Journal

The tale often told of Canadian law's advancement in the field of sexual orientation rights is simple but sublime: law has moved, however ploddingly and not without substantial prodding, out of an epoch of almost total repression, into an evermore enlightened era. Castigated by criminal law, pushed to the perimeter by administrative law, and ignored by human rights law, the "homosexual"' had once been law's quintessential "other." In recent years, however, legislatures and courts have increasingly been willing to recognize "homosexuals" as a constituency too long held down by the heavy hand of legal control. Most penal prohibitions against exercises …

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this essay will introduce the queer theories underlying my critique and will outline the discrete positioning of lesbian and gay identity and community which labels these cases “victories.” The intersectionality of queer identity is the key blind spot in the litigation model. The queer continuum, a re-conceptualization of Adrienne Rich's lesbian continuum, delineates the spectrum of queer identity. Part II will explore the facts, issues and holdings of these four cases. My examination of these cases will reveal how they grant some rights to “but-for” queers, who, “but-for” their being lesbian or gay, would be “perfect citizens.” …

Can Wrongs Be Rights? Why A "Conservative" Might Support Legal Protection For Gay And Lesbian People, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the moral argument about what the state should do to protect the civil rights of those who identify as gay or lesbian. It does not address morality but rather focuses on civil rights, arguing that the two issues are different and should thus be thought of differently by Christians. Using an analogy, the author offers an entrance point to the discussion of homosexual rights by concerning the rights of a smoker. It covers (1) what is at stake in offering protection to homosexual people, (2) the civic argument for civil rights, and (3) the moral balancing argument …

A Case Of Clothing And Smell Obsession In A Bisexual Adult Woman, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Amidst the juridical heterosexism of our legal system, the few successful lesbian and gay cases stand out as brilliant, hopeful harbingers of the future. With good cause, lesbian and gay people have hailed state cases that indicate Bowers v. Hardwick has not contaminated all American courts. Although termed "victories" for the lesbian and gay community, several recent New York cases exclude many queer legal needs. Four cases, Braschi v. Stahl Assoc., In the Matter of the Adoption of Evan, M.A.B. v. R.B. and Thomas S. v. Robin Y., embody the law's progress on lesbian and gay issues. This essay …

Parading Ourselves: Freedom Of Speech At The Feast Of St. Patrick, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Three things are true. First, American society is now absorbed in yet another great civil rights movement, this one on behalf of gay, lesbian, and ambisexual citizens, which will lead ineluctably to the elimination of legal burdens on the basis of sexual orientation.' Change will come slowly, with much backing and filling, and at an awful price measured in human pain. Intolerance for the homosexualities that exist among us, and the homosexual behavior in which many of us engage, will persist in quarters where the law cannot reach.2 Yet private homophobia, deprived of legal sanction, will ultimately be discredited and …

Specter Of A Lesbian Supreme Court Justice: Problems Of Identity In Lesbian Legal Theorizing, Ruthann Robson

St. Thomas Law Review

The specter of a lesbian Supreme Court Justice raises an issue that has troubled lesbian and political theory, the issue of identity politics. Any invocation of identity, political or otherwise, provokes postmodernist apprehension, an apprehension that has been particularly potent in sexual identities. Also as a sexual identity, lesbian identity evokes other postmodernist-influenced issues. Particularly problematic are lesbian identity's unintelligibility until claimed or avowed and lesbian identity's uncertain classification as an identity status or a sexual act. This Article will interrogate the predicaments posed by identity politics, including postmodernist questionings of identity and the identity/ activity dichotomy, concluding with some …

The Rights Of Gay Prisoners: A Challenge To Protective Custody, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

This Note focuses on the specific issues raised by the traditional method of dealing with homosexuals in prison: isolation from the general prison population. This traditional segregation often results in almost twenty-four hour-a-day confinement to a cell, which severely limits access to programs and opportunities normally enjoyed by prisoners.

This Note first discusses the history and current practice of segregation of gay prisoners' as well as the broader subject of protective custody, and then outlines the judicial response to the problems of protective custody prisoners generally and gay prisoners specifically. It then critiques the judicial confusion and resulting reluctance to …